55 And Counting
by I'll send postcards
Summary: The war has ended, earth is saved. The guard return to a rebuilt John Hancock center and get a surprise in their chests: blue gel-like orbs that produce clips of the Garde's trip to Earth. One shot. Four/Sarah & Seven/Eight. May become a collection of one shots: taking requests. Try and figure out the title, I dare you;)
1. Chapter 1

Hey readers:) this is just a little Lorien Legacies: I am Number four one-shot of after the war. No real spoilers since I'm changing the whole endgame. I think I'm turning this into a collection of one shots because I already have another one (Six/Nine) and would like to write more.

I'll take prompts from people if you want to review one or Pm me. I prefer Six/Nine, Seven/Eight, Nine/Ten (little sister relationship or romantic, they're both adorable), Four/Nine (friendship including lots of Jonny-boy's:), and anything Ten centric because since she's young there is more room for her life to develop. So yeah:)

_Prompt: The war has ended, earth is saved. The guard return to a rebuilt John Hancock center and get a surprise in their chests. Blue gel-like orbs that produce clips of the Garde's trip to Earth. One shot._

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><p>"What's going on?" Number seven mumbles as she trudges out from the bedrooms, still dressed in her pajamas. She rubs tiredly at her eyes and flinches away from the bright light of the windows as she nearly collapses onto the couch beside Eight, where everyone is gathered.<p>

Beside Eight is Six, with Sam squished next to her and Ella perched on the armrest. On the other couch is Four, with Sarah on his lap, and Nine lounging beside them. All the chests in the Garde's possession, Number four, seven, eight, nine and ten's, were in front of them and all opened except for Marina's.

"I was just about to come wake you up" Eight says smiling softly at Marina as she curls up beside him in attempt to go back to sleep.

"God, why?" Marina asks horrified as if Eight told her he was about to burn down the place. "We just won a war, people. You can't sleep in at least until, say, not sunrise?"

Eight chucks along with some of the other Garde and leans down to capture her lips in a kiss.

"Nooo" Marina mumbles pulling her lips away from the kiss and tucking her head under his chin where it rests on his chest.

Eight chuckles. "You don't want me to kiss you?" He asks as if she were proposing he not breathe.

"Not now, I'm tired" she grumbles curling into his side. "Sleep now, kiss later." Eights smile warms and he tucks an arm around he to keep her close.

"We found something new in all our chests" Ella tells her, no longer the young girl she was at the beginning of the war. She was now fourteen and had developed the legacy of manipulating water and recently levitation. She was still getting used to it though, and floated a few inches off the arm of the couch every couple minutes.

"These little gel balls that stick together. John's are purple, Six's are orange, Eight's are  
>green, Nine's are blue and mine are pink" Number ten continues "Eight was going to wake you up so we could get yours too."<p>

Marina yawns and reaches forward to place her hand on her chest. It unlocks immediately and with the click, number seven flops back down on the couch and proceeds to use Eights arm as a pillow. Nine leaps up and sorts through the contents of the chest all while mumbling how typical it was that Marina got all the awesome weapon inheritance instead of him. "Ha!" Nine announces as he scoops up a handful of little yellow balls that look like marble sized orbees.

He hands them to Six, who has the rest of the spheres. They connect immediately as if magnetized, and proceed to float out of her hands to the center of the room in a growing multicolored blob. Number four shifts uneasily, already prepared to throw himself in front of Sarah if the object were dangerous. Sarah senses the change and laughs. "John, they're little rainbow colored balls, I doubt they're going to kill any of us" she says kissing his cheek affectionately.

He settles somewhat but doesn't totally relax. "Almost everything in there is dangerous" he reminds his girlfriend but she just rolls her eyes.

"Scared of a little multicolored ball, Johnny boy?" Nine taunts from across the room. Four just throws Nine a mildly annoyed but amused look. No one could be in a bad mood now, not after the war was finally over.

The blob of color expands to about the size of a yoga ball, then the inside if it flickers as if it were the beginning to an old fashion black and white movie. "What the hell?" Six asks.

Each member of the Garde's image appears flickers on their colored sphere. They blur out until the whole blob forms a picture.

An object appears that turns into a small human. He-it was a he- looked to be about five and was in a small room with while carpet and grey slanted walls. An assortment of discarded board games lay untouched in the corner. The kid has dark brown eyes with a troublesome tint to them and a matching half smirk. A scruffy tuft of black hair adorns the top of his two foot tall head. He continues to stack a collection of blocks into a tower as he glares at them.

"Holy shit" Nine whispers into the silence.

"Is that you, Nine?" Marina asks, now fully alert.

The Garde in question nods slowly. "Holy hell, it is" he mumbles. "I remember this! This is one of my favorite memories actually."

"This must be, like, motivational clips for you guys" Sarah guesses with a shrug "you know, if you were still fighting the war. You would watch your own little bubble movie clips and be encouraged to fight harder. I guess the elders thought the war wouldn't come until later and didn't think you'd need them until now."

There's silence as everyone mulls over and accepts Sarah's hypothesis. All eyes turn back to the 'screen' as little Nine huffs and angrily climbs to his feet. He makes a noise just short of a battle cry and kicks the block tower with all his five year old might so that they're sent flying.

"Oh my god, Nine, you were so cute" Ella gasps with a giggle.

Nine glowers at his younger self, glaring at the adorable future warrior. He was dangerous, the most ferocious of the Garde. Even though all that is true, the corners of his mouth turn up ever so slightly.

"Ferocious even back then, I see" Eight comments with a smirk. Nine just nods proudly at his younger self.

A small girl with grey eyes the same age as little Nine comes to stand next to him. Her little brow is knitted together in confusion and her dark hair is in pigtails. Her frown makes her chubby cheeks stick out a little bit more.

"Six!?" Sam exclaims from his seat on the other side of the couch from her. Six sinks farther back against the couch hoping to sink into it and crosses her arms over her chest. "You're so adorable" he chuckles.

Six lashes out and smacks his arm but gently (because a real smack from Six involves stitches). "I am not adorable" she grumbles, her expression almost identical to the one displayed in the bubble. Sam bites back a grin and turns back to the screen.

"What's wrong, Nine?" Little Six asks in a bright angelic voice. Sam bites back an 'awww' because he knows it could result in a black eye.

"Four took my marshmallow gun" Nine says angrily, kicking down the remains of his block tower.

Little six looks more confused. "But I thought it was Fours?" She asks and Nine shrugs, the answer obviously yes. "And haven't you been playing with it since we got on the ship?" She asks innocently.

"Yeah, so? He was a meanie about it when Sandor made me give it to him" Nine grumbles.

Little Six's innocent expression morphs into one that makes her eyes sparkle with trouble and her grin wide. "Let's get him" she proposes with an evil giggle.

nine smirks from where he proudly watches his younger self. "Violence is _always_ the answer" he muses with a mischievous grin.

John laughs from where he sits on the couch beside Nine. "I was the victim of both of you, even back then" he says shaking his head amused.

"Well you've been an ass since back then" Nine answers simply with a smirk.

Johns eyebrows rise tauntingly. He was enjoying himself far too much when he asked "Don't you mean I've been a meanie since then?"

Nine glares at him halfheartedly. "Yes" he answers simply. "Why do you think I have to kick your ass now? It's to make up for when I couldn't do it back then."

John cracks a smile and Six laughs. "We were plotting against you even back then" she muses.

The image blurs, and refocuses on little number four shooting little marshmallows at stuffed animals lined up in a row.

Everyone turns to Sarah, whose phone makes a 'snap' as she takes a picture of little John. She sees John's expression. "Oh come on, I couldn't resist. You were so cute, John" she says luring his lips into a kiss, making him forget about the picture that would soon be her phone's wallpaper.

Little Six and Nine crouch behind a backless bookcase, whispering. Every minute or so, Six or Nine would pulls a book out of the case and peer at John to make sure he was still there. They each take their positions at either end of the bookcase and wait as Nine counts down from three on his fingers.

With a battle cry from them both, they lunge at a startled Four. Six gets to him first and tackles him, already consumed with giggles. Four manages to fight back and they wrestle on the floor for a moment. Nine grabs Four's discarded marshmallow gun from the ground and rapid fire shoots Four in the face.

By the time someone finally hears, the young Garde are in a dog pile laughing, wrestling and eating marshmallows. A cêpan comes into the room. It's Henri, Four's cêpan, who was known as Brandon at the time.

Four goes rigid at the sight of Henri, but Sarah leans her head on his chest until she can hear his erratic heartbeat calm down. The image of the giggling children blur out to be replaced with another. A smaller Marina sits in the corner curled up much like she was now. Her soft brown hair hid her chubby face as she pouted.

Eight is grinning ear to ear as he turns back to Marina who partially hides her bright pink face behind his shoulder. He just laughs and turns back to the image. A little tanned boy with a mop of curly hair that falls into his bright green eyes walks over and plops down on the floor next to her.

"Why are you sad?" Little Eight asks, his voice not as innocent as Nine's was, but still younger sounding.

Little Marina peers up through her wet eyelashes. Her lip quivers as she looks over Eight as if wondering if she could trust him. "I miss my momma and daddy" she finally says soft voice.

The young Garde's brow knits as wiggles his way into the corner with her as Marina looks adorably taken aback. "I miss mine sometimes too" Eight tells her "but I have Reynolds now and my parents wouldn't want me to be upset. Yours wouldn't want you to be sad either."

The small Loric blinks back her wet eyelashes and she mulls over Eights reasoning. "I guess" she says tentatively as she brushes her tears away with her small hand.

"Wanna go play tag with me and One?" The boy asks after leaping energetically to his feet and holding his hand out to help Marina up. "I'm number Eight, by the way."

Marina pushes her hair back behind her ears and takes Eights hand as she tries out a smile. "Okay, Eight. I'm number Seven."

The gel beads blur together until the individual colors drop to the ground in small, neat piles.

"So that's it?" Six asks from the couch.

"I guess" Four replies sounding equally as relaxed about it.

Sarah smiles at the Garde. "You were all so adorable. Six and Nine plotting against John, and you could already tell Marina and Eight would get together even at that age" she says biting her lip to keep from 'aww'ing as Eight kisses Marina with a grin.

"Do you think it'll ever show us any other memories?" Nine asks as he inspects the little spheres and tries to connect them together for the same results but nothing happens.

"Maybe" Four shrugs "I guess we'll just have to wait and find out."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Hey everyone, thanks so much for all the favorites, follows, reviews and all that good stuff:) My Instagram for my fan fiction is Bellabear9899. I post updates, character sketches, book stuff ect. Follow for follow._

_This is based on Six/Nine sometime before Fall of Five. They are both my favorite characters (and Marina and eight and Ella and everyone-why is this book so good?!) and they deserved a chapter to themselves because I think they make the nosy badass couple ever, anyone else?_

_This is based off of Cole Swindell's Hope you get lonely tonight. Unofficially titled: Blame it on the whiskey. I hope you like it and please leave a review on what you like/don't and what you want the next one shot to be on (you could just tell me the pairing or a few key words ect). So yeah, thanks for reading:)_

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><p>The air in the lecture hall was thick with humidity and anticipation. Six's eyes narrow ever so slightly as she stares down Nine, a challenging smirk playing on her lips and a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.<p>

Nine stares right back as he grins maliciously, which would almost be intimidating if Nine didn't come off as cocky he did, and of course if six could be intimidated by anyone. He throws his arms behind his back in a stretch, sweaty muscles rippling underneath his tee shirt. Training had been hard on everyone, but it paid off.

"The score is Six: thirteen and Nine: eleven!" Marina calls, her voice echoing around the cavernous room. Six cocks her head at Nine triumphantly. She was winning. "And," Marina draws out like an announcer. "Fight!"

The second the word leaves her lips, Nine is charging at six grinning as he does so. With a light spring in her sprint, Six takes off towards him as well, but just before he tackles her, Six slips to the ground and slides under Nine's arm, her blonde pony tail flying behind her as she yanks out his leg from under him. Nine surges forward and almost falls flat on his face but tumbles back onto his feet.

The rest of the Garde -Four, Marina, Eight and Ella- and Sam and Sarah watch from the sidelines. The epic daily Six and Nine fight was a crowd favorite.

The two of them were admittedly the more ferocious of the Garde and, while the rest of the Garde were continuing to get stronger, the best trained in combat. Nine and Six were so alike, yet so different which made the fight that much more interesting.

Sam watched enviously as the two of them fought hard against the other-a brutal choreographed dance that was so precise it was almost beautiful.

The two of them were together- kind of. It was complicated. But when Sam and Six fought, they never looked like that. Sure, he and Six would fight, but he never before was sure she was giving it her all while he was and then some. Watching the two of them, he saw her pushing her own limits-and loving every moment of it, high on adrenaline.

Six throws a kick to Nine's stomach but Nine grabs her foot and roughly yanks it up so that he flips Six. She takes the opportunity to throw a punch to Nine's stomach, making him double over and let her get another punch to his jaw, knocking him up. As she falls to the ground, Six yanks Nine down with her.

She launches herself on top of him and brings her fists down on his face. If Nine weren't so preoccupied with fighting off the brutal Loric girl, he might have actually paid attention to his heart skipping a beat as she straddled his chest dressed in nothing but her training clothes: spandex and a sports bra.

Nine grabs her arms to flips her over, hitting her just as hard as she hit him. Marina and John were there to heal them afterwards, and this was training for war. There was no going easy.

Nine's fist makes purchase on Six's mouth, giving her a split lip. He almost regrets but then he sees Six's grin-blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. She uses his hesitation against him and fakes left, then rolls right and out of Nine's grasp with in human speed.

Without missing a beat, she throws herself on his back and jabs hard as his sides, making him drop to the floor. She yanks his arm back behind his back and holds it there. Nine struggles against her grasp and manages to get a hard kick at her stomach, but it's too late.

"Winner, Six!" Marina announces with a grin. "Sorry, Nine" she says as an afterthought before walking out of the room with Eight and Ella, not sounding sorry at all.

Six drops Nine's arm and flops onto the ground next to him, her chest heaving. John kneels beside Nine's exhausted form, smirking as he presses his hand to Nine's chest, his injuries repairing themselves immediately.

"Nice fight, Maren" he says as he moves to Six, who wipes the blood off her chin as John mends her own wounds.

Four looks back at Nine as he heals Six. "Almost had her that time, Stanley" Four jokes with a snort.

"She's small and fast, that's all" Nine grumbles as he stands, stretching and testing out his newly repaired body. He yanks off his sweaty teeshirt and uses it to dry his face before throwing it in the corner of the room.

Six scoffs, knowing Nine was trying to repair his only slightly damaged too big ego. "Yeah, small and fast and stronger and better" she adds as she stands.

"Rematch later tonight" Nine calls as he shoots a halfhearted glare at her. Even then though, a hint of a smirk plays on his features.

"Can't wait for it to be fifteen versus eleven" she leers back as Nine and John leave the room in search of food, leaving her alone with Sam.

There's a moment of silence before Sam speaks. "Nice fighting" he mumbles as he walks over towards her but he keeps his gaze mostly downwards. "You never fight like that with me" he accuses quietly.

"Sam," Six starts, but not really knowing where to go with it. "I just don't want to hurt you" she ends up saying.

"But you can hurt nine?" He asks, obvious he had been wanting to say these words for a while, yet didn't want to fight about it.

Six's brow knits in confusion. "Nine's...Nine" she says. "If I ever went easy on him, he'd probably almost kill me."

"Go easy?" Sam asks sounding hurt. Six regrets her choice of words immediately. Couldn't he just see what she was trying to say? He was human and trying to compare himself to a enhanced alien. "So you go easy on me" Sam states, not as a question.

"Because I don't want to hurt you!" Six bursts out sounding annoyed. Sam turns to leave, but Six grabs his arm and pulls him back around. "Look Sam, you're a really good fighter, but I've been training all my life, so has Nine, and the others have been training longer than you too."

Instead of being alright with Six's explanation, that she thought was pretty gentle, Sam scowls at the floor. "I get it, Six. I'm just a human" he says dryly.

"Sam, stop it" Six growls, making him face her and look her in the eye. "Cut the crap. What the hell is wrong with you?" She demands. "We're at war, Sam, what do you want me to do?"

"I get it, I'm just a weak little human, I should just stay out of your way so you can fight in your war."

Six clenches her jaw to keep from killing Sam but doesn't say anything. She's afraid that if she does, she might say, or possibly even do, something she regreted.

"What happens when you win the war, Six?" Sam continues, letting the words he's bottled up for so pour out. "After helping you all through the war, you're just going to leave me here so I can go back to being that nerd that believes in aliens? I don't have anything else left."

Six opens her mouth, ready to scream but she manages to close it. She grits her teeth, takes a deep breath and starts again. "Sam," she says deadly calm. "What do you want me to do? Huh? Not fight the war and let my friends and your planet die? Or win the war and then not go back to Lorien which is why I'm even here at all? This is what my whole life has led up to. I can't- no, I fucking _refuse_ to just say never mind after all we've done." Despite her attempts to subdue her anger, it surges through her. "Hell, Sam, you're right. You're so _fucking_ right" she scoffs.

She understood it wasn't fully fair to him, but it was a hell of a lot less fair to her. Either way, she was too busy to entertain a relationship that would in no way work out when he kept bringing up the future.

"We are too different. You _are_ just a human. And I can't deal with you anymore." Her voice is so far beyond pissed that it sounds empty. She was done. With a stressed but relieved sigh, she smiles sourly to herself and turns on her heel, starting towards the door.

"Six-" Sam tries tiredly.

"Go to fucking hell, Sam!" Six shouts, her voice beautifully thick and rich with anger as she stomps out of the lecture hall. She storms, quite literally as lightening strikes hard outside, past the rest of the Garde so angrily that not one of them dares to go after her.

Except for Nine.

Because Nine loves conflict and a challenge. And Six.

When he finds her, she's sitting on the edge of the roof, her long tanned legs dangling over open air. Her dyed blonde hair blows behind her in the Chicago wind. Still angry, static crackles in the overcast sky and she has a white knuckle grip on the edge of the roof. She still just wears her sports bra and he can see her bare back. She looks so beautiful, he almost drops the bottle of whiskey in his hand.

"Not thinking of jumping, are ya sweetheart?"

She spins around to look at him, slipping forward ever so slightly. He lunges forward and loops an arm finally around her muscular waist. He takes his sweet time pulling her back, all while smirking in her face.

"Falling for me already, Six?" He asks smugly as he slowly pulls his arm back. "I can't say I'm surprised."

She rolls her eyes tiredly but the corner of her mouth turns upwards. She looks back where the bottle of whiskey is. "You brought alcohol?" She asks.

Nine just winks as her and grabs the bottle before taking a seat beside her. "Ever been drunk before?" He asks her.

"Twice" is all she replies and he doesn't pry.

He laughs sourly to himself. She raises a questioning eyebrow at him. "That's one contest I'm beating you in" he explains, coaxing a small laugh out of Six. "Want to try to beat me?" He asks offering her the bottle. "It was from Sandor's stash."

Six grabs the bottle and gulps down several swallows before taking a breath. Nine nods approvingly before taking the bottle from her and knocking it back. "I think it's customary that we play a drinking game" he says smirking, already feeling a slight buzz.

"Fair enough" Six reasons.

Nine smirks and hands the bottle back to Six after taking another gulp. "Okay...never have I ever...gotten a tattoo" he decides on.

Six tentatively grips the bottle a little harder then takes a quick sip. Nine guffaws. "No way, lemme see" he begs. Six lifts her hip closest to Nine up slightly and slips down the edge of her shorts to reveal a dramatic arc of lightening with black shading. "I should have know you'd have a tattoo" Nine remarks with a laugh.

"A tattoo?" Six asks raising her eyebrows. She turns her head away from Nine and pulls her hair away from behind her ear. Written there in thin, black cursive, was the name Katarina, Six's cêpan's name.

"I like it" Nine says softly, knowing Six was very fragile when it came to her cêpan.

Six just let's her hair fall back into place and hands the bottle back to Nine. "Never have I ever..." She trails off. Nine can see the gears turning in her head as she tries to decide what to tell him. After a moment she shrugs, looking bored. "had sex."

Nine doesn't make a move to drink and instead just glares down at the bottle. Six surprises him with a laugh. "Seriously? You, Nine?" She laughs. "You talk about hot girls and are constantly spouting innuendoes. You're a virgin?" She almost falls over laughing and Nine regrets his twinge forward to grab her if she does fall. Screw being in love with Six, let her fall for making fun of him.

"You can just shut the hell up now" Nine snaps after a minute.

"I'm sorry!" Six laughs as she grins and lets her head flop onto Nine's shoulder. Nine can smell the alcohol on her breath and knows she's fairly drunk right now, but he can't help but enjoy her head on his shoulder. She reaches forward so her lips brush Nine's ear as she whispers "Virgin" in his ear before cracking up again.

He just rolls his eyes and tries to fight down a smile. While he believed that she looked prettiest when she was laughing, her hellfire glare was a crowd favorite that he preferred over drunk laughter at this moment.

She lets her head fall back onto his shoulder. "I'm done now" she whispers.

Nine notices her shiver, it was pretty cold up here and she was only wearing a sports bra. He pulls away slightly, making Six sit up in confusion. He pulls off his sweatshirt, leaving him in just a fresh tank top. He offers the jacket to her and she tentatively pulls it on.

"I didn't know you were nice" Six says slowly, still looking him over as if it were a trap.

Nine shrugs and throws an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close so her head once again rests on his shoulder. "There's a lot you don't know about me, sweetheart" he says smirking into the darkness.

Six looks up at him and just watches his face for a moment. She knows that if he looks down to see what she's doing, their faces are going to be incredibly close. Six knows that doing this is either going to end exactly how she wants it, or with Nine laughing in her face before running off to tell the others of how the oh so powerful Six wanted him.

Nine stares into the night, watching the sunset behind the tall buildings of the city. He realizes exactly how perfectly timed this worked out and how close this was to one of those tacky romance movie scenes that human girls killed for.

He could see Six out of the corner of his eye and knew that turning towards her would reach the point of no return. He curses at himself in his head, because there was no way she couldn't hear his heart hammer in his chest.

But then Nine hears something. His advanced hearing picks up a sound similar to the one he was just cursing himself out for. Six's heart fluttering in the same way as his. He takes a final look at the beautiful skyline, then turns to look at Six.

Their lips are less than two inches apart, and he can feel her warm breath on his face. Their eyes meet; hers startlingly grey and his a vibrant dark green. They both find themselves mentally arguing whether they should let the inevitable happen even though they know there's no stoping it now.

"You know," Six whispers. "we could just blame it on the whiskey."

This seemed to be all the encouragement that Nine needed, because, at that moment, his lips came crashing down onto Six's, moving with such a longing and passion that she could have never imagined Nine was capable of.

It was if the same burst of adrenaline she got from fighting him was coursing through her veins now.

Six was shocked to hear herself moan into his open mouth as Nine moved her away from the edge of the roof and pushed her carefully onto the rough ground of the roof. He continued leaning forward so much so that he was nearly lying directly on top of Six, holding himself up by his elbows so he didn't crush her.

One of Nine's hands ran through Six's blonde waves while his other hand, previously stationary at her waist, slipped under his jacket that hung over her barely dressed body, gripping her hip. Her own hands worked their way up the back of Nine's neck, urging him closer to him than was physically possible.

A few warning drops of warm rain shower them before the downpour soaks them moments later. Nine pulls his mouth away from hers just long enough to murmur "Is that you?" before moving his mouth to her neck.

Six's only response is the rain coming down harder. Nine pulls away and meets Six's eyes, both their chests heaving.

"You know," he whispers huskily while fighting down a smirk. "We could just blame it on the whiskey."

And they may have hell to pay in the morning but they're fighting a war and they will take what bits of happiness they can while they can.

So they just blame it on the whiskey.


End file.
